Living at home, where one can be comfortable with treasured memories, photographs, and a favorite chair is the definition of QUALITY OF LIFE as we age. Being able to choose when to have dinner, when to go to bed and get up in the morning is the essence of personal freedom.

Our job is to help seniors maintain that quality of life, safety and personal freedom in their own home.

We take our job and senior safety seriously. This program is a mission and a passion, not just a job. Each of our staff and every inspector is a part of the program because they believe in what we do.

We are checking a home for health and safety issues. I do not know about you , but I prefer to not have either “events” or “issues” when discussing the health or home of those I love. My least favorite event to remember involved a helicopter ride that I did not enjoy, but did save my life. Enough said, you probably have yours and understand that we all need help at various times in our lives.

The sad truth is that “issues” and “events” do occur. There will be seniors dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, electrical fires or falls somewhere in the country today. Making things worse, we are more at risk as our health naturally declines.

There are too many examples to know what a senior’s home may contain as a risk without visiting and checking the house. Sometimes the issues are sewage or roof leaks. Often there are electrical hazards or loose railings or steps. Clients die of carbon monoxide poisoning in their own homes even after they had a furnace checkup. Patients receiving “in home” respiratory treatments may not get well because of mold in the home.

Pesticide poisoning can happen because there was a concern about bed bugs and a professional grade pesticide was sprayed repeatedly on the bed.

The Senior Home Safety Network team has valuable experience that has guided what we train our inspectors to check. Our report review process allows us to add our experience to each inspection.

There is a formal procedure we designed to have the best framework to reach the best possible results.

No, not all of the hundreds of thousands of combinations of what can happen in a home can be anticipated. Some examples have been mentioned, but we could write a book on the strange, dangerous and unhealthy things our inspectors have seen.